Emotionally Retarded Tactless Stupidheads
by magentabear
Summary: Oneshot. Joan considers the world around her.


Disclaimer: If I was in any way associated with _Joan of Arcadia_, I assure you, it would not have been cancelled. If I was in a position to make a profit out of this, I assure you, I would give it up in return for a third season of _Joan_.

**Emotionally Retarded Tactless Stupidheads**

Joan watched the two people with interest. The coffee shop was empty enough for Joan to hear what they were saying to each other.

They were flirting. Quite shamelessly.

"Did you just hit on me, sir?" the young woman asked with a hint of amusement.

"That I did ma'am, that I did," he replied happily.

"Well, aren't you a gentleman," she laughed.

"Would a gentleman be talking to strange ladies in coffee shops?"

She just smiled at him.

"I'm Mike," he said. "What is your name, fair lady?"

"I'm Jenna," she said, sticking out her hand.

"A handshake? You've been trained well. You're parents must be proud."

"Shut up and shake my hand, you dolt," she ordered.

"Dolt. _Dolt?_ Did she actually just call me a dolt?" he asked the invisible guest to his left and waited for the reply. "I know," he agreed with his imaginary friend, "she must be younger than she looks." Turning his attention back to an amused Jenna, Mike asked her how old she was.

"I'm eighteen," she said softly. It was obvious she was proud to be legal.

"Excellent," Mike said jovially, "then it won't be statutory rape if you sleep with me."

"Well," Jenna said after a pause, "not statutory, at least."

"But it still may be rape?" Mike asked.

"I like to protect my innocence," Jenna said with a smile.

"Quite admirable, milady," Mike remarked.

They continued in this vein, but Joan couldn't listen to this anymore. She slammed her coffee cup down. How could they? _How could they?_ They were speaking of rape as if it were nothing, just a small annoyance. How could they?

Joan thought of her mother, and felt physically ill. She stared at her coffee, stomach churning. Damn it. She couldn't finish that now. What a waste of three dollars and fifteen cents.

Joan got up to leave. As she walked out the door, she glanced back at them. Mike and Jenna (hereafter known as Emotionally Retarded Tactless Stupidheads, or ERTS) were still laughing and talking, without a care in the world. Idiots.

Joan damned them, and every other ERTS she could think of, to the fiery pits of hell. No wonder her mother waited so long to tell her about **It**. Even now, years after Helen had confided in Joan, Joan couldn't think the word in her head. **It** was just too horrible to give letters and a name to. Instead, Joan was haunted by **It**, was furious at **It**, and felt betrayed by **It**.

_And_, Joan thought bitterly as she drove home, _if this is how I react, imagine Mom_. Joan almost started crying, right there at the intersection of Seventeenth Street and McLaurin Ave.

A memory surfaced. Joan was excitedly showing off to Luke, babbling on about how close her job was to the college, and how much she saved on gas by using the shortcut down McLaurin, when he suddenly started explaining calculus to her. _Calculus_. Like she gave a shit about calculus. Apparently a McLaurin is some sort of sequence, or series, or God knows what. Joan had no idea; she was a psych major. And yet Luke blathered on about McLaurins and Taylors and integrals until she smacked him, and he admitted he was a bit nervous about his upcoming calculus final. Joan almost lost control of the vehicle, so shocked was she that Luke found math difficult.

Only later did she find out Helen had finally told her younger son some of the details about that night in college. Sure, Luke had understood the basic action; but he hadn't understood the crime, the brutality. So maybe he was a little distracted when his professor taught them about sequences and series. And, considering how useless calculus really was, Joan didn't see what the big problem was.

Joan walked into the apartment she shared with some friends from college. She hit the button to listen to her machine, and remembered what the problem was. ERTS. Damn them. Damn them all. Emotionally Retarded Tactless Stupidheads had left prank calls on her voice mail. Joan almost cried.

Joan may have matured in college, but she never did outgrow her tears.

Joan decided to make some tea. Still cursing the ERTS that had jilted her out of three dollars and fifteen cents, Joan started boiling some water. She sat down at the kitchen table and tried not to look at the tea pot.

Joan hadn't been able to look at a stove properly since God told her that a watched pot never boils. Sure, she had heard it before, but the expression takes on new meaning when the Almighty Himself utters it. Joan studiously looked everywhere but the tea pot. Her eyes happened to find the postcard stuck on her fridge.

Kevin had grown up so much these last few years. He lost most of the anger, found some motivation, and married a sweet young gal from Alabama. The postcard was from their honeymoon. Joan was pleased he had thought of the family while on his honeymoon. The selfish cockiness had been reduced to a healthy self-confidence, and the Girardi family had been much improved.

Now if only those damn ERTS would leave them alone, maybe the family could go a few years without some sort of tragedy.

The tea pot whistled, startling Joan. She jumped up with a muttered _Holy shit!_

And that was another problem with ERTS. They drove her to swearing. Joan wasn't always a curser. It came about suddenly, when she was forced to live in a dorm room filled to the brim with ERTS. And she without a family to protect her! It's a wonder Joan only cursed.

Emotionally Retarded Tactless Stupidheads, Joan had learned while in college, were like wild animals. They traveled in packs, and picked on the weak. Joan, a young girl in a new city, had been the weak. It had taken her a year to take her place in social food chain—she was the strange girl who had no patience for ERTS and who loved to talk and laugh and cry.

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Thanks for reading this rather pointless fic. Hope you enjoyed it.


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